The Latvian Gambit Lives! by Tony Kosten is a greatly expanded version of his earlier work on the subject (The Latvian Gambit 1995). Before Kosten's pioneering effort the Latvian was confined to that special group of openings that attract die-hard support at the amateur level, but finds no following among top players. The Latvian Gambit generated a great deal of controversy with fellow English GM John Nunn singling it out in his Secrets of Practical Chess (and later in Nunn's Chess Openings) as an example of a good book on a bad opening. Nunn's position was that 2...f5 is simply a bad move that weakens Black's king position and does nothing for his development. This is still the view held by 99.9 percent of the grandmasters in the world.

Having said this, it is still quite impressive to see the amount of work that Kosten has put into The Latvian Gambit Lives! The first starting point must to examine his response to the refutation that Nunn has offered. He concurs that after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 Black truly has no adequate route to a playable position after 4.d4. Much more important is GM Kosten's assessment of the position after 3...Qf6 4.Nc4 fxe4 5.Nc3 Qf7 6.Ne3 c6 7.Nxe4 d5 8.Ng5 Qf6 9.Nf3 Bd6 10.d4 Ne7 11.c4 0-0 12.Qb3 Be6 13.c5 Bf4 14.Qxb7 Nd7 15.Qb3 ("!" Nunn and NCO) 15...g5 16.h3 h5 17.Qc2 Rf7! (German theoretician Stefan Bucker's significant improvement to bolster the Latvian) 18.Bd2 g4 19.hxg4 hxg4 20.Ng1 Be5!! (Bucker) which he deems quite playable for Black. Kosten is an author with integrity and to his credit he points out that White has a better and more practical choice in 7.d3!. This move, which is attributed to Budovskis, makes a lot of sense. Instead of playing for material gain, White concentrates on rapid development. Black is hurting after 7...exd3 8.Bxd3 d5 9.0-0 with the natural moves 9...Bc5 and 9...Bd6 both failing to give Black equality. Kosten suggests some other tries for Black (9...Be6 and 8...Bb4) as deserving of investigation, but definitely the onus is on Black to come up with something concrete.

Tony Kosten is English and has lived in France for many years, but I think the Latvian government should give him honorary citizenship in recognition of his valiant efforts to resurrect this opening. If you play the Latvian, this book is required reading.

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